This is for people doing the work

👋 Hello and welcome to July 27th, 2026. Greetings to new Future Community subscribers Mack, Susana, Katya, and Akiera.

[1] Let's raise more money and build community doing it.

We're looking for a few new clients. We've recently helped groups like Earthworks, Story of Stuff, California Budget and Policy Center analyze their content, email, and digital strategies to improve retention and revenue. Find out about our half-day assessments (our list lifts!), ongoing projects, and all about how to work together.

I'm also taking on a few individual job coaching clients if that's of interest.

[2] Newsletter Nerd Club is all about AI and Content Creation

Join us at Newsletter Nerd Club tomorrow, July 28th. We'll be talking about AI, newsletters, and content creation.

Very excited that Julius Honnor from Contentious will join us to talk about the thinking and doing behind Content Health Check.

Content Health Check uses AI to push content strategy knowledge under the hood while also building a model of YOUR content over time so you have living insights, not just snapshots or best estimates from an outsider.

Nobody is working more thoughtfully with AI and content strategy than Julius. Especially in social good, charity, and nonprofit spaces.

[3] Building Bridges of human belonging, not just data

If you work in nonprofit fundraising, comms, or marketing you or (more likely) your consultants know about next week's Bridge to Integrated Nonprofit Marketing and Fundraising Conference in DC next week.

This has become a huge event. I know a lot of wonderful smart folks who will be presenting or attending. I won't be there. The costs of attending coastal conferences are wildly unreasonable for independent consultants in the middle of the country.

I'm also looking over the agenda and wondering how nonprofit fundraising and communications became so disconnected from the experience and needs of members, donors, and the people doing the work. It's all AI and data and optimization and scale. (of course, I'm hosting a call tomorrow about, yes, AI)

A connection on LinkedIn wrote something about the event and I commented with this. Not sure this landed but it sums up a few thoughts about nonprofit tech...

If I were going to this one I'd skip anything having to do with email, tech, AI and look for people working on bringing care, joy, and community to fundraising and communications work. People are exhausted. Internal cultures are broken. Too few see money, not meaning. Can't AI your way past that.

If you're going to Bridge I hope you'll find time to acknowledge and talk through the human parts of what gives meaning to this work–belonging, relationships, listening to and talking supporters, and experiencing change on the ground. Metrics measure but they don't offer meaning.

Bright Ideas

Smart people with big ideas and useful tools...don't miss these.

Idea 1. H Kapp-Klote's Chicago 312 covers the narrative strategy of Chicago politics and it's one of my favorite newsletters: direct, full of insight, and always lifting up the real humans of Chicago, not just the politicians. Subscribe and you'll get this story previewed on LinkedIn:

I interviewed @RittiSingh yesterday — a comms strategist behind "Freeze the Rent" and Good Cause eviction comms in New York – and this was one of my favorite parts:"An imperfect narrative that travels is way more important than the perfect narrative nobody hears."

Idea 2. Pick your three favorite 2036 climate headlines at Sammy Roth's Climate Colored Goggles newsletter. Love this combination of creative climate comms and positive futures thinking.

These next two pieces speak to how communities are self-organizing instead of waiting for government, non-profits, or philanthropy. Local news organizations and rising social media creators are connecting people in need with tangible support. But we need infrastructure and institutions to catch up.

Idea 3. With Millions Disaffected from Politics, An Answer Beckons: Belonging. via Micah Sifry in The Connector.

Idea 4. Giving Can Be Simple (And During a Crisis, It Must Be) by Ashley Fairbanks in Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Idea 5. The most successful AI at our conference wasn't on the stage. Once again, it's about connecting people and building community. By Hannah O'Rourke at Campaign Lab.

Idea 6. How local governments can use communication to drive climate action via Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Idea 7. In Talking About a World on Fire Hannah Story Brown talks about how Democrats are failing at climate communications at a time when hundreds of millions Americans (and people around the world) are visibly suffering from smoke, fire, and heat.

Events and Training

• From the Ground Up: What community listening reveals, across six tiny newsrooms hosted by Tiny News Collective and Listening Post Collective on July 30th.

Want to get your event or training out to the Future Community network? We're happy to share. Click reply and make sure we know about it.

Future Community Jobs

These are the most recent jobs. You'll find many more on the full Future Community job list.

Audience, content, journalism and news roles

• Vice President of Social : Courier Newsroom [Remote in the US]
• Associate Editor, News Writer : Outside [Remote in Colorado]
• Content Writer : Bold Bison [Remote in the US]
• Editor In Chief : Heartland Signal [Remote in the US] ⏱️ August 6
• General Assignment Reporter : The Oklahoma Eagle [Tulsa, Oklahoma]
• Content Creator, Bilingual : Monterey Bay Aquarium [Monterey, CA] ⏱️ July 30
• Senior Editorial Manager, Features : National Geographic [Washington, DC / New York City]

Communications

• Vice President of Strategic Communications & Marketing : NEA Foundation [Washington, DC]
• State Communications Strategist, Campaigns and State Communications Strategist, Implementation (two positions) : Clean Slate Initiative [Remote in the US] ⏱️ August 11
• Director, Communications : Right To Food [Toronto, Ontario] ⏱️ August 13
• Communications Director : The D.C. Policy Center [Washington, DC] ⏱️ August 3
• Vice President, Global Methane Communications : Environmental Defense Fund [Remote in the US / New York City or Washington, DC preferred]
• Head of Communications : Tony's Chocolonely [Amsterdam]
• National Communications Director : Techtonic Justice [Remote in the US] ⏱️ August 16
• Senior Digital Designer, Climate Science : Project Drawdown [Remote in the US] ⏱️ August 16

Nonprofit organizations

• Head of Persuasion : Hope not Hate [Remote in the UK/London] ⏱️ August 6
• Executive Director : Young Storytellers [Los Angeles]
• Southeast Regional Director : American Rivers [Remote in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Tennessee]
• Associate Program Director : Code for America [Remote in the US]
• Talent Acquisition Director : ProPublica [New York City / Washington, DC / Remote in the US]
• The Senior Director, Marketing Technology Strategy : Environmental Defense Fund [Remote in the US]
• Associate Director, Southeast Conservation : American Rivers [Remote in Tennessee]
• Associate, Global Forests and Energy Campaigns : Mighty Earth [Remote, Washington, DC preferred]
• Co-Executive Director (Maternity Cover) : Foxglove [Remote in the UK, London preferred] ⏱️ August 13

Fundraising and Development

• Manager, Events & Special Initiatives : Freedom House [Washington D.C ]
• Development Manager : Hip Hop Caucus [Remote in the US]
• Head of Strategic Partnerships & Influence : GiveDirectly [Remote]
• Director of Development : Technovation [Remote in the US] ⏱️ August 2
• Director of Development : The Citizen Service [New Jersey, US] ⏱️ July 31
• Director of Events and Strategic Partnerships : Active Minds [Washington D.C or Remote in the US]
• Development Director : Working Washington [Greater Seattle, WA]

Foundations and Philanthropy

Nothing new. But here are two soon to expire foundation roles:

• Social Media Associate : The Obama Foundation [Chicago] ⏱️ July 30
• Program Manager for Land Conservation : Native Americans in Philanthropy [Remote in the US] ⏱️ July 30

Agencies, data, politics, products & more

• Data Engineering Director : Courier Newsroom [Remote in the US]
• Senior Digital Advertising Specialist : Streetlight Digital [Remote in DC and select US states]
• Deputy Client Strategy Director : Movement Labs [Remote in the US] ⏱️ July 27

Hey. Ted here. I run Bright+3 where we give changemakers the ideas, inspiration, and tools to create content that builds stronger communities.

I also write this newsletter (aka Future Community) and run the Future Community Jobs list.